President Barack Obama said Friday that the United States and China had agreed not to conduct cyber theft of trade secrets and intellectual property against one another for commercial gain.
Obama made the announcement at the White House after talks with Xi that have been overshadowed by U.S. anger at the alleged theft of vital business information by hackers based on the Chinese mainland. The U.S. has also claimed that China is responsible for a massive hack at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, announced in June, of records of 21.5 million federal employee records.
“We have agreed that neither the U.S. or the Chinese government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage. In addition, we’ll work together and with other nations to promote international rules of the road for appropriate conduct in cyberspace,” Obama said, adding that the United States did not indulge in such activity.
There was no undertaking by either side not to conduct cyber-espionage by intelligence agencies, and there was no announcement — as had been expected by some observers — that the two sides had agreed on a deal not to mount first attacks against the other side’s critical infrastructure using cyber methods.
Obama said that he had told Xi that he was still prepared to impose sanctions against Chinese entities that were proven to have taken part in cyber theft against American firms, a threat leveled before Xi arrived for his state visit.
Obama said that Xi told him that he cannot guarantee the behavior of all the people in China when it comes to cyber actions. And he said noted that their work on cyber was not yet done, even though the two leaders reached this common understanding on the way forward.